


How it Began

by Ford_Ye_Fiji



Series: The Transendence [1]
Category: Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crossover, Dipper and Mabel should show up later, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, It took forever to figure Greg out, Transendence AU, Youll see what I mean, cute greg, the beast is mentioned, transendence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 18:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9250004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ford_Ye_Fiji/pseuds/Ford_Ye_Fiji
Summary: Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when the Transendence changed the lives of everyone forever.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Lakeville, Palmer, and Whelan all belong to Skimmingthesurface. They're a great author, go check them out!

Lakeville was a quiet town. It wasn't stunning or a must see tourist attraction. It had parts of it that were unpleasant, parts of town where alleys were covered in trash and the occasional lowlife who appeared to be made of muck, moving. Whether or not it it was their fault they had fallen into a pit of hopelessness and gotten themselves lodged in the thick morass, the filth held no discernment and took both the good and the bad in its ugly grip.

However, those filthy parts were truly few and far between. Lakeville had an altogether pleasant look to it, with quaint houses built in the early and late periods of the twentieth century. However, there were certain houses and ruins in the woods surrounding the town that belonged to times long past.

There was an unknown place, hidden deep within the woods behind towering boughs of deciduous trees and several layers of dead decomposing leaves. It had once been a mill, but the stream had long since dried up and the walls had long since crumbled away, leaving only a wooden rotting wheel and the stone chimney that appeared to be folding inwards. The occupants were now only birds and the occasional fox or squirrel.

A rather popular place to visit, that was certainly more well known than the ancient forgotten mill, was the old tavern. Actually, it wasn't that old. There once had been an old tavern that had stood there from the time of the American Revolution. People liked to think Paul Revere had stayed there, but in actuality the chances of that being true were extremely unlikely. But for the sake of fun, even if it wasn't quite true, the town council elected to construct a replica of it where it once stood before it had collapsed due to age. Consequently, every year they had a little fair where a few volunteers would dress up and pretend to be part of the tavern. You could go in there and eat food from the seventeen hundreds and talk in old English and they'd reenact some things- even though sometimes they were reenacting the civil war which was about a century later... but it never seemed to matter for it was all in great fun. If you were into that sort of thing, of course.

The Eternal Garden Cemetery was another interesting stop that most everybody seemed to forget. First off, it was a graveyard and it was kind of strange to visit a graveyard during your vacation or for fun. A few die hard historians loved it though and went about searching through town records and trying to find out who the names on the old gravestones were. Was that man a butcher or a baker or the town's old mayor? Perhaps he was a robber- a highwayman who'd been killed in one of his daring deeds? Usually it was something altogether unexciting like a Calligrapher.

The point is, this town had history, probably not as much history as Boston, Philadelphia, or even the state of Virginia, but it did have a great deal of history. Another contributing factor to the incident, was that the veil between the world's had gotten rather thin in Lakeville. This was entirely due to an unfortunate accident that had occurred the Halloween before. What happened there is perhaps a story for another time, but all that one needs to know is that it involved the Whelan and Palmer boys, Wirt and Greg. Two half brothers who had supposedly died and then come back to life. They'd nearly become a folk legend as popular as the ghost haunting the ruins of the supposed mansion three miles outside of Lakeville. (It wasn't really a mansion, it was a tea garden that never really made it out of its first stages before the owner had died of an unknown illness. In the town records, no one had really noticed the man was gone until some poor soul stumbled upon the frozen garden accidentally. That was the way it was back then.)

The two boys, however, soon were forgotten in light of an event that happened only a year after that fateful Halloween. The event was called the Transcendence. Magic swept across the globe changing everything, some more than others. Monsters and demons formed, the supernatural was suddenly very real and very personal, and panic was quick to consume many.

In Lakeville, the dead began to walk.

The veil was thin between this world and the next, and the Transcendence had only served to tear a huge gaping hole in it. The first thing to appear from the other side, the Unknown, was a red-headed girl dressed in something that looked like a blue nightgown. She had a solid form and she was very confused. The first thing that led the townspeople to identify her as part of the strange new order of the world, was when she flickered. At times, she would disappear and the appear again, like a light bulb that hadn't quite been twisted in all the way.

Slowly but surely, the rest of the residents of the Unknown filtered back through the tear. Now it only took six short months for the people of Lakeville to begin trading with the people of the Unknown, in fact one could regularly visit deceased relatives, explore an even stranger world, and trade cellphones for a few priceless magical antiques that were commonplace in the Unknown.

The tear became a door of sorts and very soon, Lakeville and the Unknown had merged into a sort of community that contained both the dead and the living. It was very admirable how the town took it in stride, compared to most of the world, where panic and mass hysteria refused to let go of the populace.

Another change was to affect those who had been to the Unknown before the Transcendence had torn the world apart and basically turned everything upside down. Those who had been touched by magic before were now given the consequences.

Greg Whelan showed nearly no physical changes, except that now, he suddenly could talk to frogs. He held deep meaningful conversations with his pet frog, Jason Funderburker who was apparently quite intelligent. Though, no one really knew what 'intelligent' meant to the flighty seven year old.

Wirt Palmer, Gregory's nearly sixteen year old half brother, changed too. Wirt however, changed quite differently. His eyes became glowing white orbs, that were (while a bit frightening) quite useful for seeing in the dark. He also gained antlers made of wood that sometimes dripped black oil or sprouted a few red leaves. Only the two boy knew what type of tree it was made from.

However, no lantern seemed to appear and while Wirt seemed to have lost the appetite for regular food, he did not have the urge to turn people into trees. It still was unsettling, though, to turn into a Beast- or perhaps a demon. After all, Wirt didn't really know what the Beast had been. Strangely enough, it was a very minor change compared to the outside world, and so his life continued semi-normally for two and a half years.

Except that he and Greg had made a secret quest. It was the dead of night, Wirt didn't really sleep anymore and he was reading a book in his room about the supernatural. Greg had poked his head in and whispered with wide eyes, "Wirt? Why _is_ everything magical now?"

Wirt shrugged and then spoke, "No one really knows.... Why are you awake, Greg?"

The seven year old skipped forward and clambered onto the bed. Wirt huffed, but put his arm around his brother and pulled him close. Greg answered, "I couldn't sleep. I mean, I don't mind talking to frogs but I dunno about the other stuff."

"Other stuff?"

Greg held up his small fingers and wiggled them dramatically. Wirt grabbed the hand and examined it, his brow furrowing. "Greg, are you growing fins?"

"I think that's what they're called. Jason Funderburker has them and he can swim really well! Does this mean I can swim really well too?"

Wirt turned to the stack of books on the floor and began searching through them, tossing the ones he didn't want aside. Greg titled his head and examined his brother curiously.

Wirt finally sat up, wide glowing eyes now moving quickly as he scanned the book's contents. He glanced at Greg again. His mouth turned down. His brother's eyes had a fish like quality to them. How had he not seen that something was wrong?

Wirt turned to the page he wanted and finally stopped next to a picture of something who looked a little but not quite like Greg.

His brother's mouth pursed, "What's that?"

"An Umibōzu, but I don't think..." He flipped the page, "I'd say a Nøkker or Finfolk is more likely."

"But what about the magic, Wirt? Why is there magic?" Greg wiggled his finger-fins again and asked, "Why do I get to be a frog person and why do you _have_ to be...?" His tone lowered to an extremely childlike whisper, "The Beast?"

So his appearance had been bothering Greg. Wirt had suspected but truthfully, he hadn't wanted to know. He waited a moment before he answered, "I don't know, Greg."

Greg jumped up, "How about a secret mission Wirt? A secret mission to find out who started the Transendence!"

"How do you know someone could even begin an event as big as that?"

"Well, it couldn't have just _happened_ , right?"

Wirt allowed a smile, "Sure, Greg."

Greg was curious and well, Wirt was too. They both agreed that they would find out who had caused the Transendence and Greg insisted that they shake hands on it.

Wirt was muffling laughter through the whole exchange.

(He refused to spit on his palms though. Where had Greg even learned that?)

**Author's Note:**

> In this story, it's August 2012. I made OtGW take place in 2011 because a) I can't write things from the seventies or eighties because I really wasn't there, b) the timeline wouldn't have worked with the events of the Transendence which took place in 2012,and c) I just really like the idea of Wirt dramatically thinking of himself as a child born in the wrong generation. 
> 
> The next part of the series will take place in early summer of 2014, so that Greg will be ten and Wirt will be eighteen, due to turn nineteen that fall. (I just picked that Greg's birthday would take place Sometime in May or early on in June and that Wirt's was either early October or late November.) 
> 
> Sorry, that's over now. :) Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
